Jury Deliberates Louima Case

Jury Deliberates Louima Case

Jury Deliberates Louima Case

Jun. 05, 1999

NEW YORK (AP) _ A jury deliberated for six hours without reaching a verdict in the case of four officers accused of helping a fellow officer sodomize a handcuffed Haitian immigrant with a broom stick.

The jury was due back Monday in a case that shocked the city for its alleged brutality and raised tensions between police and minorities.

The case had five defendants, but one, Officer Justin Volpe, pleaded guilty midway through the trial of committing the actual assault.

Of the four remaining defendants, one officer is accused of holding Abner Louima down in a stationhouse bathroom; two are accused of beating him in a police car on the way to the stationhouse and the fifth is charged with helping cover up the crime.

While Louima identified Volpe in court, he could only identify the second officer as the driver of the patrol car that brought him to the stationhouse.

Volpe assaulted Louima because mistakenly thought Louima had punched him in a melee outside a nightclub.